yo

Forms

yo^[1] Old Spanish texts also write io, hyo and jo; some 11th-century Leonese documents have eo, which suggests an archaic Leonese form like Portuguese eu.^[2][3] The oblique forms me and mí, found from the Cid on, come from Latin mē and mihi (vulgar mi).^[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yo, inherited from Vulgar Latin eo, a reduction of Latin egō (“I”).^[3][4][5][1] Corominas attributes the loss of the /g/ to the heavy wear of a grammatical word; the reduced form is recorded in the 6th century.^[3]

The pronoun survives in all the Romance languages: Portuguese eu, Galician eu, Asturian yo, Catalan jo, French je, Italian io and Romanian eu.^[3][6] According to Corominas the Portuguese form and Occitan ieu come from the stressed use of the pronoun, while Castilian, Catalan and Old French jo come from its unstressed use before the verb, where the /e/ became a semivowel.^[3][7]

The Latin pronoun is from Proto-Italic *egō and Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵ, and is cognate with Ancient Greek ἐγώ (egṓ).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosas Emilianenses, of about 950, are the first record, followed by charters of the 10th and 11th centuries.^[3][4] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) a speaker fears „en ira del rey Alfonso yo seré metido” “I shall fall into King Alfonso's displeasure”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The pronoun has been in general use in every period.^[3] Its use after a preposition (a yo, de yo) is typical of Aragonese, and is also found in Costa Rica.^[3] Autoridades notes that, said with emphatic surprise (¿yo?), it serves as an interjection of astonishment or denial.^[10] Because the Spanish verb shows the person in its ending, Bénaben notes, yo is only used for emphasis or contrast.^[11]

As a noun, el yo is in philosophy the human subject as a person, and in psychology the conscious part of the self.^[5] In Freud's psychoanalysis it is the ego, which mediates between the drives of el ello “the id” and el superyó “the superego”.^[12][13]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses have the pronoun.^[3][4]
• 1000s – Leonese documents write eo.^[3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses yo.^[9][3]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos spells it io.^[9]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records its use as an interjection.^[10]
• 1856 – Monlau explains it as Latin ego that lost its g and became eo, then yo.^[14]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. I: the first person singular, the subject form for the speaker or writer: Yo no lo sabía.^[5][1]

Noun

1. (philosophy) The self, the human subject as a person: el yo.^[5]
2. (psychology, psychoanalysis) The ego, the conscious part of a person that mediates between the drives and the outside world.^[5][13][12]

Word family

• superyó

Related words

• egoísmo
• ego
• Latin egō
• Portuguese eu

Usage notes

In the set phrase yo que tú (yo que usted) the pronoun means “if I were you”.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 6, 779
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yo
5. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. yo
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. ego
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 4, 890
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. yo
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
12. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. yo
13. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es
14. ^ Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 465